Some things FireCloud said, I agree with. When I was a kid, there was one "Doe Day" usually the first Saturday in December. It was the highlight of the season for both kids and adults. Probably 95% of the young guys at my school were pulled out of class at lunch on Friday so they could get on up to deer camp. It was a tradition. I happened to kill my first deer on one of those Friday afternoons before doe day. It was a dang nice 8 point. I was 10 years old, and my Dad put me in an old ladder stand with a 12 gauge loaded up with buckshot, and he went on about his business on the other side of the property. That would be unheard of today. But I had been with him squirrel and rabbit hunting enough times that he knew I could handle the gun, and myself. And I wasn't any more excited with that buck than I was the big doe I nailed the next day....Point being, it was all about the hunt, not what was killed.

Also, back in those days a grown man would shoot a spike just as soon as a kid would, and would be proud to bring him to the skinning rack. These days, some people will actually load a small buck up and take it home, rather than be looked down upon by those that consider themselves just a little higher and mightier.

And a point concerning LazyGhosts post....By the time I was required to take the Hunter Education course, I had already been hunting alone for 4 years, and had killed a dozen or so deer. I remember having to study for it, because I was afraid that if I failed I wouldn't be able to hunt anymore. I also remember my Dad and the other men at the camp railing about us kids having to take the course in the first place. I didn't really understand where they were coming from back then, but now I do.

As for there being less hunters today- If you aren't seeing them around your property, that's because they're all over here by mine. I have 7 neighbors surrounding my property. A couple of them start gun hunting during bow season, and shoot turkeys year round. The Men in Green Pants can't catch them, and they know it, so they do as they please....This is due to the decline of morals in America. Just as FireCloud mentioned the slack given to lower achieving students, so goes the American anthem of today. That is the very reason I stopped teaching. Half the class was asleep, and the ones that were awake didn't care about what was going on. When I gave them failing grades, I was called out onto the carpet by the principal, and told to ease my standards. I refused to do so, and gave failing grades to over 40 students that year. I was told to get with the "no fail" program, or else. I refused to do so, and quit my job. While America may be lowering its standards, I won't. We are each accountable to ourselves, and I refuse to take the road more traveled. That's just me.

In my opinion, the commercialization of hunting will be the ruin of it. It's very quickly becoming a rich man's sport, and the guy that doesn't make six figures a year will have to learn to play horshoes or pitch pennies to pass his free time.

I have slowly learned not to pay much attention to the MDWF&P....It's obvious they have a lot of hidden agendas when they are making policy. I don't trust them any further than I can throw them. Without a statewide tagging system, they will never really know what the deer population is doing. And to have a statewide tagging system, they will need more GW's and some laws with some serious teeth to them. Until that happens they aren't doing anything but guessing. And they aren't any better at guessing than any of us here on this forum....When it comes to the MDWF&P regulations they try to shove down our throats year after year, I have finally come to the conclusion that I really don't care what they have to say. All I know is I will do what I want to do on my 720 acres. When they start paying the taxes on it, planting all my foodplots, and cleaning all the deer I kill, then they can have some say what goes on here. Until that day, I will fend for myself.